The Color of This Fruit
by Her Royal Majestrix
Summary: He had not noticed the color of this fruit...or had he? (PWP - complete)


They awake, not long before breakfast, to a hazy and fine summer morning in Milton.

John Thornton is fastening his trousers when he glances at Margaret. A dreamy expression glows on her face as she sits at a small table by the window. She stretches her arms, wholly unaware of how it makes her gauzy shift cling to her every curve. It is more than enough to rekindle in John's mind the image of her from the night before, bright-eyed and body trembling beneath him.

His hand lingers on the uppermost button. Business is never slow at the mill, but twenty minutes give or take...

"And whatever are you staring at, dearest husband?"

He offers a sheepish grin, almost glad to be caught. "Can a man not admire his lovely wife on such a fine morning?"

"Always so complimentary," Margaret admonishes with a facetious smile. Her countenance softens thoughtfully as she plucks a strawberry from the small china bowl before her.

"Dixon was kind enough to get them," she says, touching the ripe fruit to her mouth.

"Quite kind," John murmurs.

He watches her bite into it, juice staining the center of her full lips. The sight sets him afire in ways he has for months tried to fight.

No one could accuse him of being less than a gentleman to his wife. As is his duty (and pleasure), he has given Margaret his most tender attentions, and she has responded tenderly in kind. Even on the nights his control slips, when he buries himself too impatiently within her, her sighs are restrained...polite. When his fingers and tongue stray where they should not, she stiffens; her words and thoughts close off to him. Her only invitation is the quiet insistence in her eyes when the candles have all but burnt out.

But looking at her now in daylight when she cannot hide, something breaks in him. He still has half a mind to lower her gently to the mattress, to love her with the languorous caresses he always does. The other half of his mind—the _man_ and not the gentleman—wants to tantalize her until she screams.

There are, he has heard, more wicked methods of bringing his Margaret to bliss. Piecing together some less-than-honorable snippets of other masters' conversations, he toys with schemes of touches and strokes and licks.

It will be torturous, he knows, not to take her with the rough passion he always suppresses. Nevertheless, it is her pleasure he craves, even above his own. He needs to hear the _other_ sounds and words he might tempt from his dignified wife. To hear those red lips beg for what a lady should not...

He eyes the bowl of strawberries, all too aware of his prolonged silence.

"They remind me of the rouge Fanny bought you in Paris," he says, silently committing to his plan.

Margaret's laugh is an airy song as she dismisses his hesitation. "I do not know what she was thinking. She knows I shall never wear it."

John nods decorously through a throb of anticipation.

"Indeed. A woman of your position and character should not be so painted for the world to see."

A soft pink rises on her cheeks as he moves to stand over her, his hands gracing her half-bare shoulders. His stern jaw constrains a devious grin, wondering where else he can make her blush.

"I have, however, heard of some more...interesting uses for rouge."

Margaret's eyebrow lifts, intrigued. "Such as?"

John's lips brush against hers. He feels her smile against his mouth, wholly unsuspecting of what he is about to say.

"Some women rouge _other_ things," he whispers before his tongue darts forward to taste her.

It is not entirely surprising when Margaret pulls away, eyes flashing, though disappointment sunders him all the same. Though she did not mean it, she once said that he was not a gentleman. He wonders if her opinion will revert once he does what he most fervently intends to.

"And how, Mr. Thornton, have you come upon this knowledge?" she demands.

Despite Margaret's clipped formality and angry eyes, a small measure of relief washes over him. It is _how_ rather than _what_ he knows that concerns her. This encourages him immeasurably. He is also encouraged that her blush has traveled down to the very kissable swell of her breasts.

"It is one of the less shocking things I've heard in the masters' company," John admits, winking as he reaches for a strawberry.

Margaret's mouth parts as he takes a deliberately sensuous bite. Her sky blue eyes hint of frustration, he muses with delight. As he takes the fruit from his lips his gaze falls again to her flushed chest, seductively rising and falling with her quickening breaths. The need to mold her silken skin to his hands intoxicates him.

In a moment of decision he yanks, not pulls, her neckline to her waist. He drinks in her curves from neck to hip—everything she has until now so carefully hidden during their nights together. Her nipples are drawn tellingly taut against the warm air. Once he touches her, he thinks with a raspy exhalation, there is no turning back. He draws only a meek moan from her as he cups her round breast, his thumb grazing over her nipple.

She gasps when he replaces the thumb with something else. Something, he imagines, that must feel wet and cool and ridged...

"No," John pleads, his hand gentle but insistent. His arousal strains as he watches her struggle to look away from the peak of her breast. It is glistening and bright red.

"Trust me."

There is more he could say to assure her, but he is mesmerized. He can think only of licking the smudge between that perfect tawny circle and the surrounding paleness of her skin.

Margaret regards him warily as his eyes devour her.

"You know I trust you," she says, though her voice wavers. "I've just not—

John's heart thrums eagerly at she looks down at herself again—longer this time.

"I've never imagined anything like this before."

"Nor I until now," he replies, uncertainty creeping into his own words. The final battle between propriety and desire wages fiercely in his mind. If her pleasure truly means her shame, he could never proceed.

Yet if bravery is her only obstacle, there is nothing that can stop him. He can no longer deny his desperation for what she hides from the world. He will do anything to draw his secret Margaret out—the Margaret that is his alone.

"But I think a new experience can be enjoyable," he assures as the gentleman in him surrenders. Sliding down to kneel between her knees, he allows his hands and body to brush over her exposed skin, making her shiver at every second of contact. He sinks down until his lips are just below the crook of her neck.

The chair was specially crafted in Italy, he recalls offhandedly. Its unusual height will be perfect for what he has in mind.

Though the kiss he places on her neck is chaste, he now knows too well where she craves his touch. He smirks with pride as she arches predictably, the fullness of her breast filling his waiting hand. Her eyes screw shut as the flesh of fruit glazes the nipple not yet painted. John bites his lip, watching dewy beads of perspiration form on Margaret's forehead as her breathing comes in shallow pants. She is already oblivious to how wide her legs have spread before him. Taking full advantage of her compromised position, he slides her night shift from waist to ankle.

John swallows thickly at the sight of what he's only ever imagined in the dark. She is now open enough for him to see dusky lips peeking beneath a small triangle of curls. It is more beautiful and enticing than any dream he's had. The temptation to immediately delve into the sweetness he has been so curious to taste overwhelms him. He steadies his posture nonetheless, reminding himself that his "work" is far from finished.

Leaning upward, he instead satisfies himself with a strawberry lick of one nipple and then another. Margaret's eyelids flutter, her hand clamping down on something much louder than a sigh. John watches with anticipation as the wet ridges of the bitten strawberry drag lower and slower between her breasts. Her breathing halts sharply when his tongue resumes its prior task, wicking away every drop of sweetness he has left behind. He stops only when he reaches the soft curls of her mound.

She shudders, her eyes sealing shut again. Her brow furrows and relaxes repeatedly, the battle between imagination and resistance plain on her face. John smiles at how her mouth pops open in shock when the strawberry dips into her folds. With tiny, whispery strokes he colors her sex until her outer lips have deepened to ruby. The cadence of her moans is louder now, but she seems to be rapturously unaware. She may too soon come back to earth, he fears, only to become a lady once again. There is no time to be lost now, when she is so close to responding in a manner beyond his wildest fantasy.

It is that notion and the twitch of his own arousal that push John past the brink of hesitation. In one quick stroke, he presses the strawberry firm against the tiny knot of flesh she has never let him touch.

The lewd moan wrenched from her trembling body sends him soaring. Moments feel like hours as he waits, finally sure that she will not protest. He begins painting, first feverishly then slowly again, until his relentless little circles have darkened her already aroused flesh. Her slickness makes it impossible to tell where the fruit's nectar ends and hers begins.

John grits his teeth as his erection grazes the leg of the chair. It would be too easy to abandon his scheme and sheath himself within her.

Taking her, perhaps a bit too roughly, with his fingers is the most he will dare at present. Nervousness has tightened her slick walls, he realizes with a bolt of lust and shame. His hiss of appreciation once she relaxes is drowned out by her sudden cry. Margaret grips the arms of the chair hard, bucking into the thrust of a second finger. It is only when she does this that he realizes the perilous closeness of his lips to the juncture of her thigh.

A trickle of sweat escapes his brow as her hips drive his fingers deeper. Her mouth opens in a pant, looking down at him with quiet desperation. He can only guess her thoughts as she throws her head back at his deep exhalation, the promising heat of his breath so close to her waiting sweetness.

He will not give it to her until she asks.

When her heavy-lidded eyes open again, John withdraws his hand and the fruit. Frustration rolls off her in waves.

"I believe my work is finally done," he says decisively as he leans over. Pinching the strawberry by its remaining leaves, he places it to the side of the bowl. His eagerness to taste it is tempered by the bewildered gaze he feels boring into him.

Margaret blinks up at him as he hands her a mirror from the nearby dressing table.

"Tell me what you see, my love."

She holds the mirror with shaking hands, looking at him and then it again with a blank expression. He waits until she goes scarlet with realization.

"I'm not a master _painter_ , of course," he says, color rising on his own cheeks.

With a hint of amusement he watches as she, rather clinically, flips the mirror this way and that. She jerks away suddenly as it tilts to show what John presumes to be a particularly revealing angle.

"I see—I see that you have been most attentive, Mr. Thornton," she says quickly. Her gaze hits the floor as she thrusts the mirror away.

"No," he insists, pressing the handle back into her palms.

"I need you to tell me how it felt."

She licks her drying lips. "You know that I cannot."

"Please, Margaret," he urges, unable to fight the raw need he knows she will hear. "You must."

His heart thunders as she weighs the sudden silence. The apples of her cheeks redden more with each moment of hesitation.

"It felt..." She takes a shaky breath. _Yes_ , he struggles not to say aloud.

"Like I would imagine your mouth to feel," she blurts.

His jaw clenches. Desire sings in his ears—if he has heard correctly.

"That's better, but not good enough, Margaret."

He brings a finger, now tinged pink, to his mouth very slowly. He almost shudders with want. The taste of her is heaven.

"If you cannot say what you want," he asks as he licks past his knuckle, "then how I can I give it to you?"

Margaret's enraptured gaze darts away, her cheeks draining to a pallor.

"I—"

He watches with well-concealed worry as a shadow of propriety crosses her expression. Never before has she been so close to speaking her desire. She has told him something; something which minutes ago he never could have hoped for. The persistent throbbing he can no longer ignore makes him as desperate to hear more as she is to hide it.

"I want you to kiss me," she finally blurts.

"Where?" he demands.

She looks at him and down again at her strawberry-painted flesh. Her gaze finally, bravely, holds. With the lightest of touches she opens herself, now thoroughly rouged and pink, wide like a flower.

"Where you make me yours."

John feels his knees slide against the floorboards. He does not know whether it is that quiet bombshell or the vision of her delicate fingers, spreading herself for him like the whore she could never be. Either way, the last thread of patience in him snaps instantly.

Burying his face between her legs, he greedily licks the commingled flavors of her pearl and the strawberry. His tongue laves and flicks mercilessly as her thighs clench around him. She thrashes as he stretches her again with his fingers. They curl and pump within her steadily until his shoulders are pinned between her knees.

When she slips backward, he holds her hip aright with one hand, thinking too late of how she might bruise. Those bewitching blue-gray eyes lock on his, her perfect breasts heaving as she pushes herself into his open mouth. He inhales sharply, trying to concentrate as her silken walls contract around a third finger. He can tell she is close. Never so much has he ached for it.

His lips tighten fiercely as he sucks on her center of pleasure, the two nectars tingling on his lips. Her hips rise and fall erratically as she grabs a fistful of his hair, sealing his mouth to her until he can barely breathe. Nails scrape his shoulders through his night shirt as her pulses quicken around his fingers. Her shoulders and hips lift at once, leaving him in awe as waves of pleasure culminate in a cry that is close to a scream.

His pumping fingers slow as the last of her contractions release them. "So sweet," he whispers with a final lick, half smirking as she jumps with sensitivity.

Well beyond his own madness, he is about to sweep her up in his arms, white sheets be damned, when he feels her grip tugging his collar.

"Mr. Thornton...John." Her voice is as unsteady as her hold on him. Bracing his shoulders until she stops wobbling, she hoists him up until they are both standing.

Her sweet smile beams up at him with those lips that he's yet to properly kiss. As her arms encircle his waist, John lowers his mouth to hers. He is so proud of her, that she has dared—

He does not know what hits him when buttons pop and his trousers are ripped to his knees. By the time he lands with surprising force on the chair, the wood still warm from her naked skin, he thinks he must be dreaming.

Small hands he could never imagine to be so confident (or strong) are raking against his chest. Impossibly, Margaret's alabaster legs are straddling him, her knees hugging the edge of the chair. She makes a sound he has never heard before as she flushes, this time with desire rather than humiliation. He follows her hand as it teases longingly down her pale stomach. With shock and fascination, he watches as she opens herself again. His hardness borders on pain as her fingers begin to rub and pinch experimentally. He thrusts helplessly upward toward the heat radiating from her. It does not help that the hot silk of her is already eagerly rubbing the base of his length. When slick fingers circle around the tip of him, he nearly comes undone.

She is silent, except for the familiar breathy sounds coming from her berry lips. Through his haze, he somehow manages a grin of realization.

With her dark eyes, she is whispering the indecencies her mouth will not. He has found his temptress, he thinks with pride, just before she slides down onto him with a delicious sigh.

* * *

I normally don't go for "this sort of thing" (i.e., any food...ever), but I could not get this out of my head. All I can say is I hope it was...tastefully...done. (Sorry. I'll stop now. )

There's more where this came from, sans edibles. Hoping to post more one-shots and longer pieces soon.

Thanks for reading. ;-)


End file.
